Gorretti Mak Yan-Yan
Directing
Biography
Mak Yan-Yan is a Hong Kong based female award-winning director. She was born in the 1970s and graduated from the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts in 1998. Since 1993, as a student, Mak had worked for the film industry as a continuity girl, assistant director, production manager, art director and wardrobe designer. Her graduation short film Snapshots won the Distinguish Award at the International Short Film & Video Awards of Hong Kong in 1998. After directing number of short dramas for Radio Television Hong Kong, she established her own production company Lotus Film, to make her own film. Her debut feature film, Gege (Brother), although using a very limited budget, a small crew and an all non-actors cast, was awarded the FIPRESCI Award at the 25th Hong Kong International Film Festival, the POVEGLIA Award at the International Week of Film Critics of the 58th Venice Film Festival, the Woosuk Award at Jeonju International Film Festival in Korea, as well as the Ecumenical Hury Prize at the International Film Festival Bratislavan and Fribourg International Film Festival 2001. Her second film Butterfly was chosen as the Opening Film at Venice Film Festival Critics Week and Tian Yuan was awarded as the Best New Artist at the Hong Kong Film Awards in 2005. The film was also nominated at the Taiwan Golden Horse Awards in 2004 for Best Adapted Screenplay (Yan Yan Mak) and Best New Performer (Tian Yuan). Besides feature films, Yan Yan is also active in making short film. Her video projects 'Sarangi', 'Autumn Story', '2 Cartons of Alphabet H', 'August Story' (premiered at Tokyo International Film Festival 2006, awarded 'Best Drama' in South Taiwan Film Festival), 'So Poetic' and 'Angel Catcher' have participated in many international film festivals between 2001-2008. From 2005, after become the collaborator with Hong Kong singer HOCC (Denise Ho), Yan Yan has produced numeral music videos, music short films and TV Commercials. 'The Scarlet Robe' has won the 'Best Drama' in Big Screen Film Festival, China 2007. They had finished their first feature length film 'The Decameron' (a documentary about madness, under the music project '10 Days in the Madhouse') in 2009.
Known For
Flavia is a thirtysomething married teacher. She has suppressed the memory of her adolescent lesbian fling with Jin and is stuck in a stifling marriage. A chance encounter in a supermarket with the playful and seductive singer Yip reawakens dormant feelings and she begins to think back on her teenage affair with Jin.
Butterfly
The film gets under the skin of a very marginalized group: recent immigrants to Hong Kong from Mainland China. Belying the expectation that they will belong in a territory now returned to China's sovereignty, they find themselves lonely, frustrated, poor, and employable only in the most menial jobs, from elevator service staff to prostitution.
Love Will Tear Us Apart
The Great War: Director's Cut (2013)
The Great War: Director's Cut
The story of two women, two generations apart, who coincidentally return to Hong Kong from San Francisco where they had their first, fleeting encounter on the streets as strangers.
Merry-Go-Round
The film follows a girl in Hong Kong between her uncle’s dressmaking shop and her studies; between young and youth. Based on a story by Wai Chan.
August Story
The Decameron
The Decameron
Two travelers’ (a Hong Kong independent director and a Japanese musician) motorcycle diaries in northern China from November 2005 to February 2006. Forget all the vital intellectual and history garbage and get down to the real simple, good human feeling – and express it in a simple language that reaches people. No bullshit! (Or all bullshit?) Under the sound of the motor, Yanyan’s visual and Dean’s music weaves into each other; and shows the healing power of the trip to both the Chinese and Japanese souls. Everybody, at a certain point, is a little lost and sometimes we just find a connection to someone that helps to re-inspire or center us. And that experience we'll never forget. It’s a special relationship in real life - a little bit more than friends but not an actual romance. They get each other and they both know it's not going to go anywhere.
2 Cartons of Alphabet H
Ah Ming searches for his brother, who ran away seven years prior. The only clue is a single letter sent from the remote town of Qinghai. Once there, Ah Ming slowly wins the trust of the locals and talks to his brother's friends. Eventually he finds his brother's Super-8 film and a map of China marked with his travels. Recognising that he is unlikely to ever find his brother, Ah Ming fatefully follows in his sibling's footsteps. - Melbourne International Film Festival
Brother
Slight @ Love More HK
Slight @ Love More HK
1998 short by Mak Yan-Yan
了了
1995 short film
100%G
This "Cities of Love" episode takes us to one of the most fascinating cities in the world. Shanghai stands for a long history of sensuality, intrigues and mystery.
Shanghai, I Love You
The Body of Book - short film
The Body of Book
Siu, in her seventies, once again endures cruel and unreasonable threats and abuse from her son at home. Having endured it all her life, she determined to push the old sofa that should have been discarded long ago out of her home.